THE SOUL IN NATU11E. 
95 
exist. KepleBs great laws of the motions of the 
heavenly bodies were discovered in this way; and it is 
well known that Leverriqr measured the weight, velocity, 
distance, and constitution of the planet Neptune without 
having seen it, and so determined its existence by the 
aid of reason alone. 
By the very fact that man is part of Nature, so his 
reason is also natural, or in harmony with the reason 
manifested in natural law. Were the laws of nature 
antagonistic to the infinite reason, they could not exist; 
were they inconsistent with human reason, man could 
not comprehend them;—-hence we know that, in the 
great unity of the spiritual and material, man is also 
concerned, and inseparably united in the living idea of 
the Almighty power by whom all things are created. 
Brom the moment that we perceive this truth, the walls 
of space and time fall down, and the soul finds an 
inheritance of immortality in its merely spiritual exist¬ 
ence, needing none of the aids of external reasoning to 
endow it with everlasting life. 
The philosophy of the beautiful is wrapped up in this 
fact. Metaphors and poetical images derive their origin 
and significance from it. The analogies which the 
imaginative mind readily perceives between objects 
which to ordinary apprehension seem so dissimilar, are 
traceable to the same source. Indeed, strictly speaking, 
the whole creation is only a bundle of analogies. 
We are accustomed to the recognition of beauty, and 
seldom pause in our admiration to inquire the source of 
the beautiful. Yet the beautiful is to be found by the 
man of science, and is merely the last expression of a 
